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Chapter 16 – Whispers Beneath the Veil
The tremor that split the marble floor of Eryndor's citadel did not fade with the night. It spread, unseen by most, like a spider's thread weaving through soil and stone. Farmers in distant villages woke to find their wells poisoned with salt. Miners in the Blackreach Mountains spoke of hearing voices in the tunnels—voices that knew their names. Sailors returning to harbor swore the tides had turned against them, their ships dragged inland by waves that seemed to resist the pull of the moon.
The world was listening, though none yet knew to what.
In the silence that followed the quake, Seeress Maeryn knelt beside the crack in the citadel floor. The silver light within it pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat. Her fingers hovered above it, trembling, for even without sight she felt its hunger. It was not simply a wound in stone; it was a wound in reality.
"My King," she whispered, her voice ragged, "this is no omen. This is a summons."
King Aldric's jaw tightened. "From whom?"
Maeryn's blind eyes lifted, though she looked at none of them. "Not whom. What."
Her words unsettled the chamber more than any prophecy could. Even Rhogar, the hardened Marshal who mocked omens, stood with unease now. The soldiers in the hall shifted their weight, their armor rattling faintly. And beyond the chamber doors, the courtiers whispered like leaves in a storm, their fear a tide rising higher with each heartbeat.
But what none in that hall could know was that far away, in a cavern where shadows clung like breath, Kaelen stirred from restless sleep. The tremor had reached him too—not in stone, but in spirit. Dreams had torn at him, visions half-formed, as if the world itself whispered in languages not meant for mortals.
He saw a sky split in half, gods warring across it with weapons older than fire. He saw oceans boiling, mountain peaks collapsing into void. He saw himself standing at the center, a mark burning across his chest—the same mark carved into the crack that now pulsed in Eryndor's citadel.
Kaelen gasped awake, chest heaving, sweat cold upon his skin. For a moment he could not tell if he was alive or still dreaming, for the walls around him seemed to hum faintly, the air itself vibrating. He pressed a hand to his chest, and though his skin was unmarked, the echo of the sigil burned there as if seared by unseen flame.
"Do you feel it too?"
The voice broke the silence. Kaelen turned sharply. From the cavern's shadow stepped Lysera, her amber eyes glinting with something between fear and awe. She had not spoken of her past, not even why she had chosen to follow him, yet in that moment she seemed less companion and more witness—one who knew truths he had not yet touched.
"What… was that?" Kaelen asked, his voice hoarse.
Lysera's gaze lingered on him. "The world has shifted. A veil has been torn. Mortals call it omen. The Watchers call it awakening. But for you…" She stepped closer, her hand hovering near his chest, as if she too felt the hidden burn. "…it is a call."
Kaelen wanted to ask more, demand answers, but the cavern shuddered again. From its deepest tunnel came a sound low and resonant, not like falling stone but like a horn blown from the bones of the earth. The sound pressed into their skulls, ancient, commanding.
And in the citadel of Eryndor, hundreds of leagues away, Seeress Maeryn flinched as if struck, for she too heard it. The horn's cry carried not through air, but through the thin places of the world itself, echoing across gods, mortals, and things in between.
"The First Seal," Maeryn gasped, clutching at her chest. "Broken."
The king's council erupted in fear.
In the cavern, Kaelen rose unsteadily to his feet, his heart pounding as if it had heard the same call. He did not yet know what it meant. He only knew one thing—his life was no longer his own.
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